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The British Parliament Treasury Committee has asked nine banks and construction companies to detail any recent computer failure after a three -day breakdown in Barclays caused chaos for millions of customers.
A letter to the managers asked them to define the number of cases where customers have not been able to access their services due to the failures of it in the past two years, as well as the number of customers affected and the quantity compensation they had to pay.
The CEO of Barclays UK, Vim Maru, received a more complete request from the committee about his computer failure in late January.
Maru was invited to explain what had caused failure, which started on January 31 and left customers without essential banking services such as online banking services and payments and transfers.
The breakdown caused distress among more than 20 million British Barclays customers, many of whom had to receive their first salary check of the year while others were trying to respect a period to make payments after producing their declarations as Self-assessment income with HMRC.
“When a bank’s computer system broke up, this can be a real problem for our voters who were counting on access to certain services so that it can buy food bills or pay on Monday,” said Dame Meg Hillier, president of the selective committee of the Treasury.
“For this to happen in a large bank like Barclays at such a crucial period of the year is either bad luck or bad planning. Anyway, it is important to learn what has happened and what will be done on this subject. »»
Barclays at the time recognized technical problems and apologized to customers. He sent an update two days later by saying “the technical problem having an impact on our customers on Friday and Saturday was solved and delayed the payments treated”.
The British lender has not yet explained what caused the breakdown of several days, although people familiar with the bank said that it was not linked to a cyber attack or a malicious activity.
Barclays was also invited to provide an initial estimate of the remuneration that he plans to pay as a result of the breakdown and if it expected an increase in fraudulent transactions during and in the immediate consequences of computer failure.
The Committee also said that widespread closings of the Bank Bank on rue High Street make technological failures “more painful” for customers.
